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For nights Donna tosses and turns. Shannon was working. She wishes he wasn't. He could offer comfort and reassurance.
She doesn't care that she gave birth to a boy who was in fact a girl. It didn't make the love she felt any less. Her child was her child, nothing and no one could erase that. Couldn't break that bond. All she ever wanted was for her child to be happy. That's all any decent parent wanted.
But the world cared and the world was cruel. Rose–Donna liked that name her daughter had picked for herself. She had known Rose, she could swear she did from somewhere—she was so happy to be free. To be open about who she was. The world wouldn't be. They would tear at her, tear her down and try to put her back in a box that fitted them.
Donna would die for her daughter. She had known this from the first time years ago when she felt her baby kick, she knew she would die for the child growing inside her without a second thought. But she can't protect Rose from the cruelty of the world.
But she would try. Because that's the only thing a mother can do is try.